Oops. It seems that Chris Christie, that two-fisted, no-bullshit, schoolteacher-bludgeoning, SHUT UP!, hero of all the faux tough guys over on the Right, has tap-danced a little about why he decided to yank New Jersey's support of a new train tunnel to help alleviate the traffic crossing the Hudson River into New York. Christie said he was pulling the plug because the state couldn't afford the unforeseen costs of the project. A new GAO report says that this was what my old journalism prof would have called a barefaced non-fact:

The report... to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.

Also, the Times piece has paragraphs that begin, delightfully...

Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey exaggerated...

Mr. Christie also misstated...

There's a word for this kind of thing. It'll come to me eventually.

(Photo Illustration by DonkeyHotey via Flickr/Special to The Politics Blog)